


Temporal Souls

by SuperNerdyGeek



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 07:17:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19194265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperNerdyGeek/pseuds/SuperNerdyGeek
Summary: There's small talk and ghost stories when the fam go camping.... sort of.





	Temporal Souls

****

 

“Doc, when you said ‘camping’ I thought you meant ‘tents in a field’, not ‘sat on a bit of AstroTurf in the TARDIS’.”

The description was perfectly accurate, as there in the console room, on a large piece of AstroTurf; sat in a circle were the Doctor and her ‘Fam’. In the middle of them were a plate of assorted biscuits, a loaf of bread, a tin of Spam and 4 bottles of water.

The Doctor looked at Graham, keeping cheerful while feeling slightly crestfallen.

“Yeah, well, this is a camp, so it’s camping!”

“Is it though?” Ryan asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Think of it as camping but without the crickets. Don’t like crickets. Their poetry is terrible.”

“Poetry?” Graham looked confused.

“What do you think that chirping is? Reciting bad poetry all night long, it’s unnerving.”

“I’d like to hear some.” Graham enquired.

“No, you wouldn’t. Besides, the TARDIS won’t translate it.”

“Oh, why won’t it?”

“She dislikes the poetry more than I do, so refuses to translate it.”

“Oh that’s a pity.” The TARDIS made a deep, hummed clicking noise. “Or maybe it’s not.”

“It’s a shame, if I could find it, we could have a pool party.” the Doctor sighed.

“Wait; hold up, we have a pool?” Yaz asked, excitedly.

“Yeah, do somewhere, lost it a while back. It was in the library for a bit but that was after I crashed into a shed.”

The 3 of them just stared at her. Hearing that from anyone else, it would have made no sense and probably made them cautiously retreat. But hearing that from The Doctor meant it was an exciting story for another time.

“So, what shall we do? I’m all up for an early night anyway, so maybe a quick game or something?” Graham wasn’t old at all, just one of those people for who a good night’s sleep was a truly beautiful and wondrous thing.

“Truth or dare?” Ryan offered.

“Not with her!” Yaz laughed, pointing to The Doctor, “I do NOT want to think about what would happen if she was dared to do anything.”

“What could possibly…” The Doctor stopped herself upon seeing the knowing looks all of them were giving her.

“Never have I Ever?”

“One of us is over 2 thousand years old. What HASN’T  she done?” Yaz chuckled.

“That, Yaz, is a long, long list.”

“Doc, how is that possible?”

“Everything that ever has been, that was, that could have been, that may well be, might be and what will be? Even at my young age, there’s a lot of all that I haven’t seen and done.”

“You’ve seen a lot though, yeah.” Ryan asked, with a curious wonder.

The Doctors eyes lit up and she smiled, “I’ve seen what’d be everything to some. Imagine getting to my age and having the joy of surprise at something new. What you 3 see for the first time is what I sometimes see for the first time. It’s brilliant.”

“Somethings you’ve seen before, though.”

The Doctors smile faded slightly.

“Those’re usually the things I don’t want to see again.”

Graham, Yaz and Ryan gave their friend the silent moment of contemplation they felt that she needed.

“Camped in the TARDIS before?” Yaz gently broke the silence.

“This might be the first. I mean, plenty have slept over. But yeah, this’d be the first.”

“Well, Doc, here’s to this being the first for us all.” Graham smiled reassuringly. “Hey, I’ve got an idea, what about ghost stories? We all tell our scariest story.”

“I just want to hear The Doctors.” Ryan stated simply.

“Same.” Yaz agreed.

The Doctor smiled at them, as they all looked at her eagerly.

“Werewolves, giant spiders, flesh eaters, mummies, vampire fish… I might have some stories…”

“All of them, I wanna hear all of them!” Ryan exclaimed, excitedly settling into a more position.

“One story, just one, big day tomorrow after all.”

“Is it?” Graham asked, trying to remember something about the following day.

“Could be”, The Doctor replied, “It’s a Monday.”

“Doc, I think tomorrow is Tuesday. We don’t have plans though.”

“Alright, we might not be doing anything tomorrow and it might be Tuesday but something might pop up!”

“Ok then, one story, give us your best one.” Yaz spoke, her tone implying a challenge.

The Doctor gazed off to a distant place, thinking through 12 lifetimes of the incredible and the terrifying. She saw Yas pulling a blanket around her shoulders, for comfort, not for warmth. The TARDIS temperature was always perfect, there was never a draft or a…

A chill… perfect…

She looked at them, their faces all eager and ready and she began,

“There’s a place for all of you, out there somewhere and some when. One spot in all of space and time, that’s reserved just for you. You don’t know where or when it is or how you’ll get there but you will, one day or one night. There you will be and right there and then, you will die.”

“Doc, that’s not scary, that’s morbid.”

“Shh!” Yaz and Ryan went in unison.

“Every living thing is heading to that one spot of theirs. Not where you’re buried, oh no. Your grave is simply the place you rest, not the place you end. Been to my grave, won’t lie, it’s pretty rubbish, no flowers or cards. Anyway, the place you die. Quick and painless, your last breath a gasp or slow and painful, your breathing and your heartbeat slowing until you’re nothing.”

“OK, this IS really depressing. We gonna get scary at any point soon?”

“Patience, Ryan, all just warming up.”

“Go on, Doc”

“Did any of you ever swear that you saw a stone statue move, corner of your eye, just shift a little, looking at you?”

“I think everyone has.” Ryan stated.

“That’s because everyone has seen them move. Because they do move, when you’re not looking, when you don’t look at them, when you close your eyes even for a blink, they are moving and they are coming to end your life as you know it.”

The 3 of them looked at her. They looked at how calm she was, explaining what had now placed a thought in their minds that terrified each of them.

“That’s true, isn’t it, all the statues, being alive?” Yaz asked, knowing the answer but wishing she was wrong.

“Nah, of course they’re not all alive.”

They all breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s only just a lot of them that are alive. Well, only those looking like angels.”

“Doc, there’s a church at the end of the road with a statue of an angel above the doorway, massive thing it is. You telling me that it’s alive?”

The Doctor looked at Graham and then slowly put her hands up, hiding her face behind them.

“Something like this?”

“Yeah, that’s the one, you saw it then?”

“Oh I’ve seen them, Graham, just not that one.”

“It’s alive… So it’s not safe to go there then, with that statue monster thing being there?”

“Weeping Angel. It’s called a Weeping Angel. Ordinary statue until you don’t look. You blink and it’s coming for you. It feeds on time energy, to keep it simple. With a touch, it sends you through time and feeds on the energy that generates. Your life as you know it is over. Yaz, how many people have disappeared around the area?”

“There have been reports, you know, come to think of it. I think about 4 people but it’s been over the space of quite a few years.”

The Doctor thought it through. The Angel, it was peckish but not ravenous, must have had its fill, possibly in New York. That’s something at least.

“OK,” The Doctor responded, “I’ll sort it.”

The fact that she had just lied weighed heavily on her. Sort a Weeping Angel? Oh the ways she had thought of eradicating them all. The rage and fury born from what they had taken. Who, they had taken. None of it would work, though. Time Lords with greater means had tried and they had failed. Short of being able to create a massive crack into the nothingness of the universe, which would eventually consume all things, there’s no stopping them. There is only one way that a Weeping Angel can die.

“So, these Weeping Angels, they’re the ghosts of the story, yeah?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah, Doc, I mean come on, that’s definitely keeping me up tonight.”

“No. They’re not the ghosts in the story.”

They looked silently at her, the looks of expectation a message for her to continue.

“You have you place to die. So do the Weeping Angels.”

“They have a place in time that they’ll die?”

“Each and every one of them has its point. We are gone but not forgotten. An Angel though, forgotten but never gone, the stone deceases but part of it lives on.”

“Oh this is the ghost bit.” Graham realised.

The Doctor nodded gently.

“The essence, a remnant of the Angel lives in that moment for a millisecond before it expands across time. Back through the past, to the beginning of it all and forwards through the future, to the end of days. A Temporal Soul, always in that spot, waiting, resting… feeding…”

Nobody said a thing.

The Doctor picked up a custard cream off of the plate and pulled it in half. She put the half without cream back on the plate and proceeded to happily nibble away at the cream coated other half. She had decided that the biscuit to cream ratio was off and that this was the only way to eat them.

“You know that chill you get, randomly and suddenly? That one you feel uncomfortable with because it can be warm but then you’re all ‘brrr’ for a minute and then it’s gone? Horrible, isn’t it. I think you lot all say that ‘someone’s walking over your grave’. Cheerful.”

“… That’s them…” Yaz barely spoke the words, a fearful whisper into the air.

“That little chill, that exact spot that you felt it, is the death point of a Weeping Angel. The chill is because a Temporal Soul has just fed from you. You only felt it as a shiver down the spine, a tingling in the arms and legs, a sharp jolt before everything is normal again. But it isn’t. Your life just changed and you will never even know how.”

“Doc, what’s it done? I mean, it doesn’t time warp you, right?”

“No, it’s not a ravenous devourer like a full Weeping Angel. No time warping.”

“So what’s it fed on then?”

“The Temporal soul feeds on days. It’s fed on your days. You’ll never know but that chill is days being eaten off of your life.”

“That thing has fed off your life? So you will die days earlier?”

“Every single chill that you have felt has been time from your life being taken away. One little nibble at a time.”

The Doctor put the last remaining bit of custard cream into her mouth. She would’ve finished it by now but you don’t get too many chances to make a dramatic effect with a biscuit.

“Doc, I can’t even think of how many times I’ve felt… I must have lost…”

“You’ve lost weeks, months or maybe even longer?”

“We all have.” Ryan pondered, “All of us.”

“But what’s it all for? I mean, why bother? Their bodies are gone, right, so why?” Yaz asked.

“Existence can change but there will always be existing and things just want to exist. Humans don’t corner the market in not wanting to die. I’ve died twelve times and each time, I didn’t want to go.”

“They feed to keep existing.” Yaz understood.

“Full marks to the pretty one.” The Doctor smiled.

“I thought I was the pretty one?” Graham chuckled.

“Pretty old…” Ryan replied.

“Clip round the ear?” Graham looked at him.

“Handsomely aged?”

“Keep digging, sunshine.”

“So they feed on whoever is in that point they died. So does every single person feel it? Someone walks there after you did, they’ll also feel it?” Yaz curiosity had been piqued.

“Do you have dinner right after dinner? A few little days is like a feast for the soul… literally. The Temporal Soul won’t need to feed for months and months. One day, down the line, someone will feel a chill and then continue on their merry way.”

Everyone but The Doctor jumped when the TARDIS made a loud clanging noise.

“Blimey” The Doctor exclaimed, “2am already?”

“Well, as much fun as this has been, Doc, I’m off to bed and not sleep at all.”

“Same.” Ryan agreed, as did Yaz with a nod.

“Oh… Well…” The Doctor thought for a moment before, “Slumber party?”

“Yes!” The Fam’ agreed in unified terror.

“Change into pyjamas, back here in 15 minutes?” Yaz suggested.

“Done.” Ryan said, heading off to change, followed by Graham and Yaz, who turned to The Doctor and said, “See you in a bit. No more ghost stories though.”

The Doctor smiled.

“No more.”

Yaz returned the smile and left.

All was quiet for a moment, The Doctor taking a moment to enjoy the calm and think about all things.

Noticing that the custard creams had been eaten, she started heading to the cupboards to raid them for more.

She suddenly felt… something.

It crept along her spine.

Her body trembled as her arms and legs shivered.

She took a short, sharp intake of breath before pausing, her eyes slowly widening.

Her entire body perfectly still, she looked around, her eyes moving from left to right.

There was nothing there of course.

But The Doctor had felt a chill.

  
  



End file.
